My lemon verbena plant is growing out of control and I have been using it every chance I get. I have been infusing it in simple syrups for drinks, crème anglaise, in fruit papillote… I even made a sugar body scrub with it. The aroma that it exudes when rubbed between the fingers is amazing.

I wanted to make an ice cream with it and I thought of combining it with white chocolate. I think lemon and white chocolate really compliment each other so I thought why not use the verbena I have. The result is subtle but bright.

Ice cream sandwiches are so fun in the summer. It brings back memories of summers at the beach for me when ice cream sandwiches were always the afternoon treat. This time I made a very crumbly and delicate chocolate and almond shortbread that has a bit of crunch but it’s still soft enough to eat with the ice cream. The bit of sea salt really enhances the chocolate.

In a medium saucepan, place the whole milk, heavy cream, half of the sugar and the lemon verbena leaves. Slowly bring to a boil. When it comes to a boil, turn the heat off and let the leaves steep in the milk for about 15 minutes. Turn the heat back on and bring it back to a boil.

In the meantime, whisk the egg yolks with the other half of the sugar. Temper the hot milk mixture into the egg yolks and whisk. Return this base back to the saucepan and cook until nappe or until it reaches 84C.

Have the white chocolate chopped in a large bowl. Strain the custard over the white chocolate and stir until all the chocolate has melted.

Place the bowl with the ice cream base over an ice bath to cool down quickly. Refrigerate overnight. Churn in your ice cream machine overnight.

How pretty!! You are ingenious when it comes to making the best use of things..i love the idea of making it into a sugar body scrub—that would smell amazing!! Haven’t had ice cream sandwiches in a while–would be a good time to start again!!

suzie- i forgot to mention this in the recipe but what I did is I poured the curned ice cream on a quarter sheetpan and let it freeze solid this way. Then I cut out rounds with the fluted cookie cutter that I used to cut the dough.

Assemble the sandwiches first, freeze them and once they are hard, then you can wrap them.

Ohhhhh, I wish that you have the recipe for “Lemon Verbena Body Scrub”…… (do you accept a special request for your reader? I am one of your special reader you know….)

For the Ice cream? I’ve just made the same ice cream using David Lebouvitz” recipe, it is superb! Since I still have the ice cream, I will make your chocolate and almond short dough, then combine the 2 together! It should be super…. super …. SUPERB! Thanks again for another SUPERB idea!

Hi Elra-The body scrub has really no trick. What I do is a mix demerara sugar with coconut oil and some whole verbena leaves. Then I just use this as a scrub in the shower. It’s a bit messy since the leaves will end up on the floor but it truly is fragrant! Try it if you can. And if you don’t have fresh leaves, you can use a drop of verbena oil.

Wonderful recipe, beautifully presented as always but gotta tell you, I started to laugh out loud at one of the pictures. The one with someone’s hand holding it with a bite taken out – reminded me of my granpa’s teeth :)

Mimi- to answer your question… i find that anything with white chocolate is always a bit too sweet that’s why i find it important to balance it with a bit of lemon , passion fruit or in this case the verbena. I also think that if I had a good commercial ice cream maker, it would be a bit less sweet because these ice cream makers, create such an airy product. But it was good nevertheless!

Aran, these ice cream sandwiches are simply perfect looking, almost too beautiful to eat! But I’m sure I’d manage, if they were right beside me, to forget about the beauty and concentrate on their taste :)

Lemon Verbena is a great tea. It is a calming relaxing tea and I guess it is high in antioxidants. Every morning I put 3 or 4 leaves in a cup of boiling water, infuse for a few minutes and enjoy.I prune my lemon verbena regularly, put the branches somewhere to dry out, then put the leaves in a bowl and dry out some more.I then put them in jars and enjoy them as tea.Great blog!

Hi Aran! I have been scouring the blog and I found this really attractive recipe… The almond and chocolate shortbread sounds amazing! I have a technical question though: how do you assemble the sandwich? Do you freeze ice cream in cookie cutters, or in squares ( I don’t remember what their proper name is… the metal ones used by pro ) and then cut them with the cookie cutter…? Just curious about the process! Thank you! Elisa